Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Reading the book ' Stalingrad--The Turning Point ' by Geoffrey Jukes. It is about the battle of Stalingrad ( 1942-1943 ), in which Field Marshal Paulus, under Hitlers's instructions, threw scores of German divisions in suicidal attacks at Stalingrad, which were repulsed and annihilated by the Russians in the most vicious battles of the Second World War.

The flexibility and imaginativeness of the Russian defence, and the boldness of the counter offensive, planned and executed primarly by Marshals Zhukov and Vasilevsky of the Russian army,was in sharp contrast with the dull 'mincing machine' approach adopted by Paulus and the German High Command ( OKW ).

The trap on the German 6th Army and part of the 4th army was laid superbly by Zhukov, Vasilevsky, Yeremenko, Rokossovsky, Vatutin and Stavka ( the Russian High Command ), resulting in 330,000 German soldiers being surrounded in the Cauldron, of which only 91,000, including `1 Field Marshal ( Paulus ), and 24 Generals were taken prisoners. Of these, only 5000 survived the war.

The Russians fought heroically, even unto death, against fearsome odds. No wonder the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, presenting the Sword of Honour for the city of Stalingrad, to Soviet Prime Minister Stalin, said " The Russian army tore the guts out of the German war machine ".

Stalingrad marked the turning point of the Second World War. The military balance thereafter shifted in favour of the Russians

In 1984 that criminal gangster Indira Gandhi, who imposed a fake ' Emergency' in 1975 in India in order to hold on to power after she had been declared guilty of corrupt election practices by the Allahabad High Court, an ' Emergency in which even the right to life was suspended, and lacs of Indians were falsely imprisoned, was assassinated.

As a reaction,the Congress Party led by Rajiv Gandhi organized a slaughter of thousands of innocent Sikhs, many of whom were burnt alive by pouring petrol or kerosene on them and setting them on fire. When there were protests against this horrendous crime, Rajiv Gandhi said ' jab bada ped girta hai, dharti hil jaati hai' ( when a big tree falls, the earth shakes ). It is believed that he gave oral instructions to the police not to interfere with the massacres for 3 days ( see my blog ' The 1984 Sikh riots ' ).

Soon after these horrible massacres, elections to the Lok Sabha was declared, and Congress swept the polls on this emotional wave winning a record 404seats in the 532 seat Lok Sabha, while BJP won only 2 seats.

In 2002 the massacre of Muslims was organized in Gujarat by BJP led by our friend, and the result was that BJP has been regularly winning the Gujarat elections ever since, and has even won the Lok Sabha elections in 2014.

So the message which has been sent is loud and clear : organize massacre of some minority in India, and you will sweep the polls. Never mind how much misery you cause to many people

.

Are not the Congress and BJP, and even many smaller political parties, which are responsible for horrible deeds and for systematically looting the country of a huge amount of money for decades, and for causing such terrible sufferings and misery to the people, criminal organizations, most of whose members deserve the gallows ?

Monday, 27 April 2015

A person with the surname Pandey has called me a ' beef eater monster '.

I have a high opinion of Pandeys. They are great revolutionaries. Mangal Pandey ( 1827-1857 ) is said to have lighted the first spark, which led to the great Rebellion of 1857 against British rule.

Chittu Pandey ( 1865-1946 ) declared independence of Ballia in 1942.

Chittu Pandey is popularly referred to as the Sher-e- Ballia (Lion of Ballia). He was a fighter in the Indian Independence Struggle He was born in Rattuchak, a village in Ballia District of Uttar Pradesh.

A distinguished independence activist, he led the Quit India Movement in Ballia; and has been described as the "Tiger of Ballia" by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose.

On 19th August, 1942 Chittu Pandey declared a National Government, which lasted for a few days before it was suppressed by the British. The parallel government succeeded in getting the British Collector of Ballia to hand over power and release all the arrested Congress leaders.But within a week, soldiers marched in and the leaders had to flee.

Some people have agreed on my views on Gandhi, but have objected to my calling him a rascal. So let me explain.

As I said in my article ' Gandhi--A British agent ' ( see my FB page and blog), ever since he returned to India in 1915 till his death in 1948, in almost every article and speech Gandhi propagated Hindu religious ideas like Ram Rajya, goraksha, varna ashram, brahmacharya, etc. In other words, he kept injecting religion into politics. This inevitably drove many Muslims towards the Muslim League, and thereby served the British policy of divide and rule, which resulted in Partition in 1947 with all its horrors. So Gandhi, along with Jinnah and other British agents were responsible for the deaths of 500,000 people in the Partition massacres, and rendering millions homeless. ( see the stories of Manto about Partition ).

Also, Gandhi served British interests by diverting the freedom struggle from the revolutionary direction Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen ( Masterda ), Chandrashekhar Azad, Ashfaqulla, Khudiram Bose, Rajguru, Ramprasad Bismil, etc were taking it to a harmless, nonsensical channel called satyagraha.
Does such a person, who was jointly responsible for such colossal misery to millions, not deserve to be called a rascal ? Or should he be called a Mahatma and the Father of the Nation ?

Sunday, 26 April 2015

I like some of Iqbal's poetry, but I intensely dislike him for advocating creation of Pakistan, and for preaching pan Islamic nonsense e.g. in his poems Shikwa and Jawab-e-Shikwa. He throughout supported that rascal and British agent Jinnah ( that rascal Gandhi, too, was a British agent ).

Iqbal was elected president of the Muslim League in 1930 at its session in Allahabad, in the United Provinces as well as for the session in Lahore in 1932.

In his presidential address on 29 December 1930, Iqbal outlined a vision of an independent state for Muslim-majority provinces in northwestern India:

"I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sindh and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated Northwest Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of Northwest India."

The ideology of B.J.P. can be summarised in a few words : hatred of Muslims and Christians.

The B.J.P. claims to represent the Hindus ( whose euphemism is 'cultural nationalism' or 'Hindutva'), but in fact the B.J.P. leaders and rank and file have no idea about the great Hindu intellectualism of the past

In my speech entitled ' Sanskrit as a language of Science ' ( see online and on my blog justicekatju.blogspot.in and also on the website kgfindia.com ) delivered in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and thereafter in the Benaras Hindu University, I have given a glimpse of that great Hindu intellectualism.

The B.J.P. members have no idea of this, and of the real great achievements of our ancestors in the past, and instead they talk nonsense by saying that in ancient India there were aeroplanes, guided missiles, and atom bombs, or that in ancient India we knew genetic engineering or could do head transplants. Such talk only makes us a laughing stock before the whole world.

All that B.J.P. has in its ideological arsenal is hatred of minorities and the knowledge how to instigate communal tension and riots. It is an anti national party,because as I have mentioned in my article ' What is India ' ( see online and on my blog and on kgfindia.com ), India is a country of great diversity ( because it is broadly a country of immigrants, like North America ), and hence secularism and equal respect for all communities is the only path towards peace and prosperity. Whoever spreads communal hatred is an enemy of India.

Periyar ( E.V. Ramaswamy ) was objectively a British agent, who preached caste hatred. The wicked British policy in India after the Mutiny of 1857 was of divide and rule. In the Mutiny Hindus and Muslims had fought jointly against the British. After suppressing the Mutiny the British decided that the only way to control India was divide and rule ( see online ' History in the Service of Imperialism ' by B.N. Pande ). So the British policy was that not only religious hatred but also caste hatred had to be aroused and spread in India. It is true that there were already religious and caste differences in feudal Indian society. The whole question was whether these differences should be narrowed down, or further aggravated ? The British policy was that they should be aggravated. The policy of all patriotic Indians ( like Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Surya Sen ( Masterda , etc ), on the other hand, was, and still must be, that the differences should be reduced and we become one, strong and prosperous nation

A true leader must not seek cheap popularity, as Gandhi did. By appealing to feudal, superstitious ideas ( like cow protection, Ram Rajya, varnashram, etc ) one may become a 'Mahatma', but one does immense harm to the nation. A true leader must patiently persuade people to give up superstitions and backward feudal ideas and practices ( like regarding cow as holy or wearing burqa ) even if that makes him very unpopular for some time, and adopt rational, scientific ideas and practices

A massive earthquake has hit Nepal and parts of North India. The deaths in Nepal are about 1500, and those in India about 45, 30 in Bihar, 12 in U.P. and 3 in West Bengal.

When an earthquake hit Bihar in 1934 this is what our great 'Father of the Nation' said about it :

"On 15 JANUARY 1934 an earthquake shook Bihar and caused extensive damage. Mahatma Gandhi declared that this earthquake was God's punishment for the sin of untouchability. Gandhi had no objection to the orthodox Hindus' suggestion that perhaps God was displeased with his teaching on untouchability: everyone had a right to interpret God's purpose as he pleased. For himself, he was absolutely certain that the devastation in Bihar was caused by men's sinful refusal to permit the untouchables into the temples. (Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi, E.P. Dulton & Co., New York, 1969,p.456) "

So according to this.'Mahatma' ( whom I regard as a fraud and a fake ) earthquakes are not due to some geographical causes (seismic effects ), which can be scientifically studied, and precautions taken, but due to divine wrath.

Saturday, 25 April 2015

Cows which are old and stop giving milk are driven out and left to starve. Is this not cow slaughter ? But nobody is bothered about this. I have seen such cows eating filth on the roadsides. Sometimes they eat polythene bags, because of which they die in horrible pain. Where are the protectors of 'mother cow' then ?

I often go for walks in and near the apartment colony in Columbus, Ohio where I am staying presently. In one of these walks I met a young African American who is less than half my age, and who also lives in the same colony, and we have become friends.

We often go to Starbucks ( a chain of small restaurants in U.S.A. similar to our Coffee Houses in India ) together on his car for coffee. One day he pays for the coffee, and the next day I pay for it.

We have had long discussions on a variety of topics, normally I playing the role of the teacher. He has read many of my Facebook posts and blogs ( on justicekatju.blogspot.in ), and he told me that he has got a lot of knowledge from them.

He said that ordinarily he would have had to pay a lot of money to get this knowledge. I replied that my belief is that knowledge should be available and imparted free, and should not be for sale. I have done intense study in my life of various subjects for over half a century, and have also added to my book knowledge by discussions with some people having top class minds, and also by my own contemplation and reflections.

Now I am distributing the knowledge I have acquired to whoever wishes to learn, and I do this as a solemn duty, primarily to my own countrymen to raise their intellectual level, but also to anyone in the world who wishes to learn, and so there is no question of asking for money for this. I believe that education ( like healthcare ), at all levels, should be free. I am a teacher, not a merchant.

I asked him whether he has read my article ' What should American blacks and Indian dalits do ? ". He said he had. I told him that no doubt American blacks and Indian dalits have been oppressed and discriminated against in the past, and there is discrimination against them still, but now the time has come for them to stop crying like babies and move on. They must now prove that they are intellectually equal to whites and 'upper' castes by winning Nobel and other Prizes in science and mathematics.

Since they are still handicapped in many respects, they will have to work harder than whites and upper castes to achieve this, but they must do this, otherwise they will remain being looked down upon and discriminated against. As far as I know, not a single black or dalit has won a Nobel Prize in Physics, Chemistry or Medicine, or internationally recognized prizes in mathematics, genetic engineering, etc. To prove that they are intellectually equal they must now win these prizes. Winning physical competitions (, boxing, basketball, athletics, etc ) is not enough.

Dr. Horn was an English medical doctor who went to China in 1954 and worked there till 1969.

He has mentioned in his book that in China doctors of the modern and traditional medical schools were taught to co-operate with each other, and learn from each other.

He has mentioned cases where modern ( allopathic ) treatment failed, but the patient was cured by the traditional Chinese medical treatment. e.g.acupuncture.

From the point of view of modern science,the theories of traditional Chinese medicine may appear irrational and unscientific. Nevertheless they are often effective in curing ailments.

Many doctors practising the traditional Chinese medical systems have been enrolled on the staffs of modern hospitals in China, working side by side with their modern-type colleagues and co-operating with them. Traditional doctors have access to modern diagnostic methods.such as X rays and laboratory investigations. Hospitals exclusively for the practice of Chinese medicine have been built incorporating features new to traditional medicine, such as case history filing departments.

A large number of young modern type doctors have attended short courses in traditional Chinese medicine,and some senior physicians have done intensive study for one or two years. Although traditional doctors were urged to learn something of modern medicine, the main emphasis has been on modern doctors learning traditional medicine.

The policy of the government towards traditional Chinese medicine expressed itself in two ways. One was to analyse and test the efficacy of traditional remedies, and try to find out how traditional methods, such as acupuncture, work. This type of research work was largely done in research institutes by teams of traditional and modern doctors, pharmacologists, biochemists, physiologists and laboratory workers.

The second was to conduct clinical research into methods of blending traditional and modern medicine with the object of developing a new system superior to either alone. This is mostly done in general hospitals by modern type doctors working in co-operation with traditional practitioners. It is a kind of research which, because it concerns itself more with practice than with theory, is able to achieve relatively quick results, which in turn can open up fruitful avenues for basic theoretical research.

In my opinion in India too we can utilize some of these ideas in providing healthcare to our masses. We had our traditional systems of medicine like Ayurved and Unani. and research should be done about the efficacy of their methods of treatment and drugs. We should neither reject them outright nor accept them outright. Whatever is found beneficial and useful, after research, should be taught in our M.B.B.S. courses, so that a doctor learns both Western medicine as also Indian medicine. Many ailments like spondilitis, arthritis, asthma, etc have no cure in allopathy. It may be that there is a cure in our traditional medical systems.

Dr. Horn also mentions that thousands of para medics are also trained in China. In U.S.A. also there is a system of having nurse practitioners or physician attendants. These are not full fledged doctors, but they supplement the medical personnel, of whom there is often a shortage

Thursday, 23 April 2015

Cartoon needed
Can any of you prepare a cartoon for me which I wish to post on my facebook page ?
This cartoon should have a donkey walking ahead of, and leading, (1) a cow with a poster on its back with the words " I am your mother, don't kill me ": and (2) a woman in a burqa or hijab with a poster on its back with the words " If I don't wear this I will be naked ".
The cartoon can be sent to me by a link on my email id mark_katju@yahoo.co.in or by messaging me on facebook

This is the 'freedom' which that great 'Father of the Nation' gave us, the freedom to tens of crores of Indians to go hungry, remain unemployed, without proper healthcare, education and housing, and to commit suicide
Jai Ho

In Czarist Russia there was a law that one could not remarry within 7 years of getting a divorce from his first wife. When the great Russian scientist Mendeleev remarried within a month of his divorce, but no one prosecuted him for bigamy, a complaint was made to the Czar ( the Emperor of Russia ) about this double standard. The Czar replied " Mendeleev may have two wives, but I have only one Mendeleev in my Empire ".

Mendeleev is famous for his discovery of the Periodic Table of elements. He incorporated all the then 62 known elements ( today there are 112 ) systematically in rows and columns. He even left empty boxes in his Periodic Table, which predicted new elements which would be discovered in future,

" Look harder " he seemed to taunt the scientists of the world " and you will find them " And indeed they did subsequently, e.g. germanium gallium, and scandium. He even predicted their physical and chemical properties, though he had never seen them. When these elements were discovered later, they fitted perfectly in the empty spaces left for them in the Periodic Table by Mendeleev.

Mendeleev's genius can be realized from the fact that when the French scientist Lecocq de Boisbaudran discovered the element gallium, Mendeleev scanned his data, and said that Boisbaudran must have measured something wrong, because the density and weight of gallium as found by Boisbaudran differed from Mendeleev's predictions.. At this, Boisbaudran re-examined his data, and found that he had indeed made mistakes. He then retracted his data and published results which corroborated Mendeleev's predictions. The scientific world was astounded to note that Mendeleev, the theorist, had seen the properties of a new element without even seeing it, and much more clearly than the scientist who had actually seen and discovered it !

Mendeleev's work, though defective and incomplete in some respects ( e.g regarding.elements called the lanthanides, many of which were later discovered in the Ytterby quarry near Stockholm ), is comparable to that of Darwin in evolution, and Einstein in relativity. No wonder the Czar said he had only one Mendeleev.in his Empire

Apart from being a great scientist, Mendeleev, like Dr. Oppenheimer, who is regarded as the father of the atom bomb, was a great scholar of Sanskrit

By giving Sanskrit names to his "missing" elements, Mendeleev showed his appreciation and debt to the Sanskrit grammarians of ancient India, Panini and Patanjali, who had created sophisticated theories of language based on their discovery of the two-dimensional patterns in basic sounds. Mendeleev was a friend and colleague of the renowned Sanskritist Böhtlingk, who was preparing the second edition of his book on Pāṇini at about this time, and Mendeleev wished to honor Pāṇini with his nomenclature.

Noting that there are striking similarities between the periodic table and the introductory Śiva Sūtras in Pāṇini's grammar, Prof. Kiparsky says:

"The analogies between the two systems are striking. Just as Panini found that the phonological patterning of sounds in the language is a function of their articulatory properties, so Mendeleev found that the chemical properties of elements are a function of their atomic weights. Like Panini, Mendeleev arrived at his discovery through a search for the "grammar" of the elements."

Wednesday, 22 April 2015

I am a modernist who relies on science and reason, and believes that all religions are superstitions. I believe that the spirit of scientific enquiry is necessary for civilization to sustain itself.

I have no faith in the vulgar democracy presently prevailing in India, which largely runs on the basis of caste and religious vote banks.

Presently over 80%, if not 90% Hindus, and the same number of Muslims in India, are communal and/or casteist. Religious fundamentalism runs deep among most Hindus and most Muslims, as is evident from the fierce, irrational, and often abusive, reactions to my comments on beef and burqa.

Can these idiots, who are mostly highly superstitious fools, having deep faith in astrology and other such humbug, and largely unscientific mindsets, be trusted to govern themselves ?

Democracy requires an enlightened citizenry, which is capable of forming and holding rational opinions. Does this exist in India ?

That is why most of our political leaders today, including many in Parliament, whom our stupid people have themselves elected, are rogues, rascals, crooks, looters and gangsters, many of them having.criminal antecedents, who should have been hanged from the nearest lamp post long ago.

Science and Creativity
I have repeatedly said that the means of solving India's ( and indeed the world's ) massive problems is science.
What is science ? Science is that knowledge by which we understand nature ( the object of the natural sciences ) or human society ( the object of the social sciences ), and utilize that knowledge for our benefit.
In India, science was represented in ancient times by the Nyaya philosophy, and its companion, the Vaisheshik, both of which belong to the shatdarshanas or 6 classical schools of Indian philosophy ( see my speech ' Sanskrit as a language of Science ' delivered in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, online or on my blog justicekatju.blogspot.in and on the website kgfindia.com ).
According to the Nyaya philosophy, nothing is acceptable unless it is in accordance with reason and experience. True knowledge arises through the fo
ur pramanas ( means of acquiring true knowledge ).
Of these four, the pradhan pramana or main source of acquiring true knowledge is pratyaksha, or knowledge arising through the 5 senses.
But pratyaksha ( direct perception ) can also sometimes lead to false knowledge, e.g. we may see water at a distance, but it may be a mirage. So correct knowledge may not always come from simple observation or cognition. We have to also apply anuvyavasaya, i.e. testing by reason, as in a cross examination, what we have observed, to acquire true knowledge.
Apart from pratyaksha there are also other pramanas. The second pramana is anumana pramana ( logical inference or qayas ) e.g. where there is smoke there is fire. We may not be able to see the fire, and so there is no pratyaksha, but we can infer it from the smoke.
Anumana is also an extremely important source of knowledge. Rutherford never saw an atom with his eyes, but he understood its structure by inference by the scattering of alpha rays ( helium ions ) when directed at a gold foil. Nobody has seen a black hole ( because it is so dense that light cannot escape from it due its gravitational pull ), but we can infer its existence and position by the movements of neighbouring heavenly bodies.
Shabda pramana means a statement of an expert, and this is also a means of acquiring knowledge. For example we know that e=mc2, not by our own reasoning, but because it has been said so by Einstein, who is a reputed physicist, and we believe him, though we may not ourselves understand how he arrived at that formula. Similarly, a doctor is a medical expert, so we believe his diagnosis. In school we accept what our teacher tells us.
The fourth pramana is analogy ( upama ). But the last three pramanas are ulltimately dependant on the first, that is pratyaksha or direct perception.
The Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy gave tremendous theoretical support to the growth of science in ancient India, and to our great scientists like Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta, Charak, Sushruta, Bhaskar, Varahmir, etc
In Europe modern science begins with Copernicus ( 1473-1543 )., who in his book ' On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres ' said that it is the earth which goes around the sun, and not the sun around the earth.
This was an excellent application of what would be called ' anuvyavasaya ' in Nyaya philosophy.
By simple observation we see that the sun seems to go around the earth, as it arises in the east, goes up in the day, and sets in the west. But the principle of anuvyavasaya says that correct knowledge is not always obtained by simple observation. To obtain correct knowledge, the observation has to be tested by reasoning.
So Copernicus ( and long before him, Aryabhatta ) reasoned that we would observe the same phenomenon ( of the sun arising in the east, going up in the sky in the day, and setting in the west ) if the earth was rotating on its axis. Hence he concluded that the earth was going around the sun, and not the sun around the earth.
Today we take this reasoning for granted. But for the medeival world it was blasphemy It shook the Jacob's ladder which faith had built between angels and men, and the belief of men for 2000 years. It transformed a geocentric and anthropocentric universe into a kaleidoscope of stars and planets in which the earth seemed only a speck. It changed everything--distances, significances, destinies. And God, who had been close by, and who seemed to inhabit the clouds, disappeared into the far reaches of an infinite space,
This reasoning required a tremendous flight of imagination for those times, especially when this new and revolutionary idea was totally contrary to the seemingly time tested theory of Ptolemy, endorsed by the Bible. It required creative thinking of the highest order.
With Copernicus the modern age begins. With him, secularism begins. With him reason delivers a smashing blow to faith immemorially enthroned, and man begins his long journey to rebuild with science the shattered world of his fantasies.
Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein,Bohr Heisenberg, etc were similary later scientists who defied conventional 'wisdom' and allowed their minds to soar, using their creative thinking
I may take a recent example.The wave-particle duality in nature, which says that particles can be perceived as waves, and waves as particles, is a striking illustration showing how science tries to penetrate appearances and go behind the world of our ordinary experience to understand the truth.
As is well known, Newton believed in the corpuscular theory of light ( that is, light travels as a shower of particles ) while Huygens believed in the wave theory, that is, light travels as waves. Subsequently the work and equations in electro-magnetism of the British scientist Clerk Maxwell seemed to support Huygens theory. However, later the Quantum theory of Max Planck seemed to support Newton's theory, and Einstein's research of photo electric cells supported Planck's theory.
But still later Louis de Broglie propounded his theory that particles can be perceived as waves. This was later vindicated by experiments as it was found that particles exhibited the same features as waves, that is, they undergo diffraction, interference and polarization.
Rutherford had established his model of the atom, somewhat like a solar system with a positively charged nucleus at the centre, and negatively charged electrons orbiting it. Niels Bohr postulated that the electrons could move only in certain definite orbits, otherwise they would radiate energy and crash into the nucleus. And it was left to Schrodinger to establish that an electron would not radiate energy if its orbit consists of an integral number of de Broglie wave lengths.
While for ordinary experience Newton's physics would do, it breaks down at the micro level and at speeds approaching the speed of light. Then Einstein's Special and General Theories of Relativity apply.
Today the situation is that while we have made progress in the natural sciences, we have yet to solve the problems of poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, lack of healthcare and good education for over 75% of the world's population, including over 75% population of India's population. These problems cannot be solved by knowledge of the laws of natural sciences, but of those of those of the social sciences. It is to these problems that we have now to principally address, and to solve them will require tremendous effort and all our creativity

To those who wanted an ' Islamic ' state
This is the inevitable barabaric result of falling into the trap of the wicked British, and demanding and setting up an 'Islamic' state.. Only secularism will work in this sub continent of such diversity, and lead us to prosperity.
Pakistan, that fake, artificial entity ( I refuse to call it a country ) must be abolished and reunited with India under a strong secular government which does not tolerate religious extremism and bigotry of any kind and crushes it with an iron hand, and works genuinely for the welfare and prosperity of our people.

Monday, 20 April 2015

There is a controversy as to whether the Indian National Anthem 'Jana Gana Mana ' was written by Rabindra Nath Tagore ( see my blogs ' Tagore ' and ' Tagore and Sharad Chandra ' on justicekatju.blogspot.in ) in praise of God, or as sycophancy in praise of the British King George the Fifth.

In my opinion the evidence is strongly in favour of the second view.

To explain, let me first quote the Engish translation of the song :

" Victory to thee, O ruler of the minds of the people,

O Dispenser of India's destiny.

Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindh,

Gujarat and Maratha,

Of the Dravida, Odisha and Bengal;

It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,

mingles in the music of Yamuna and Ganges and is

chanted by the waves of the Indian Sea.

We get up with your blessed name on our lips

We pray for your auspicious blessings

Thou dispenser of India's destiny.

Victory, victory, victory to thee."

Now a few things must be noted about this song :

1.The song was composed at precisely the time of the visit of the British King George the Fifth and Queen Mary in December, 1911

2.The poem does not indicate any love for the Motherland.

3. The ' Adhinayak ' ( Lord or Ruler ) is being hailed. Who was the ruler of India in 1911 ? It was the British, headed by their King-Emperor.

4. Who was the ' Bharat Bhagya Vidhata ' ( dispenser of India's destiny) at that time ? It was none but the British , since they were ruling India in 1911.

5.The song was sung for the first time in India on the second day of the Calcutta Conference of the Congress Party in December 1911. This Conference was held specially to give a loyal welcome to King George the Fifth, and to thank him for annulling the Partition of Bengal in 1905.

6. The agenda of the second day of the Calcutta Conference , in which the song was sung, was specially reserved for giving a loyal welcome to George the Fifth, and a resolution was adopted unanimously that day welcoming and expressing loyalty to the Emperor and Empress.

7. It was only as late as in 1937, when he wanted to show himself as a patriot, that Tagore denied that he had written the song to honour the British King

The above facts almost conclusively prove that ' Jana Gana Mana ' was composed and sung as an act of sycophancy to the British King.

An ocean of idiots
Those Hindus who regard cow as our mother are as big idiots as those Muslims who support burqa ( hijab ). When it comes to behaving like idiots I see little difference between Hindus and Muslims.
Narayan Narayan !

When I was in the city of Benares on the banks of the Ganges, the ancient land of the Brahmans, I strove to learn. I understood Hindi fairly well. I listened much and noted everything. I was staying with my friend Om. He was a Brahman, the worthiest man I have ever known.
One day we went together to a temple. There we saw several holy men. As is well known, they have a learned language, Sanskrit , in which is written a sacred book they call the Veda.
I passed in front of a holy man who was reading this book.
" O wretched infidel " he cried " You have made me forget the number of vowels I was counting. Because of that my soul will go into a rabbit's body when I die, instead of going into a parrot's, as I had every reason to hope it would "
I gave him a rupee to console him.
A few steps from there I had the misfortune to sneeze, which awakened a yogi who was in samadhi.
" Where am I ? " he cried out. " What a calamity ! I can no longer see the end of my nose. The celestial light has disappeared."
" If I am the cause ", I said to him " of your not being able to see the end of your nose, here is a rupee to repair the harm. Now go back to your celestial light ".
My friend Om then took me to the cell of the most famous of the holy men, whose name was Baba. He was naked as a monkey, and around his neck had a chain that weighed over sixty pounds. He was sitting on a chair which had nails penetrating into his buttocks. Many women came to consult him. He was the oracle of every family, and enjoyed a very great reputation.
Om had a long talk with him.
" Do you believe swamiji " Om said to him " that after seven lives and seven transmigrations of my soul I may reach the abode of Brahma ? "
" That depends on how you live " said Baba.
" I strive " said Om " to be a good citizen, a good husband, a good father, and a good friend. I give money to the poor, and I maintain peace among my neighbours "
" Do you sometimes put nails in your arse ? " asked Baba.
" Never, swamiji " replied Om.
" I am sorry, but then you will certainly never reach the abode of Brahma " said Baba

Sunday, 19 April 2015

Who ordered Incitatus to turn a Nelson's eye ?
During the UPA government there were numerous scams of not crores but lacs of crores of rupees ( not millions but billions of dollars ). Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister then. If he was not misappropriating these huge sums ( because he was said to be an honest man ) then he was obviously deliberately turning a Nelson's eye to the scams. It was only because of PILs and orders of the Supreme Court that the Indian public came to know of this massive fraud and corruption.
The legitimate question then arises : on whose instructions was this human Incitatus deliberately turning a blind eye to these scams ? And who was pocketing all this money ( obviously stacked in some secret foreign bank accounts ) ? The Indian public has a right to know the answers to these questions

The human Incitatus
It is said that the Roman Emperor Caligula ( who ruled from 37 to 41 A.D.) made his favourite horse Incitatus a consul ( the highest office in the Roman Empire, after the Emperor ), and that this horse was 'attended' to by servants, and it invited 'dignitaries' to dinner.
Similarly, Sonia Gandhi made Manmohan Singh, a man who had never won a Lok Sabha election in his life, the Prime Minister of India, and this human Incitatus loyally obeyed whatever instructions he got from 10 Janpath

Saturday, 18 April 2015

From Columbus, Ohio, where I am presently, I yesterday telephoned a lawyer friend of mine in Allahabad, my home town. He told me that most people in Allahabad were against me because of my statements about eating beef, Gandhi, etc

I told him I am not a popularity seeker. I have often been isolated and viciously attacked and abused in the past, but that does not bother me.

Lord Krishna's adjuration to Arjuna in the Gita has been my guiding principle in life. One should do his duty irrespective of the consequences.

So I will do my duty to my country even if I am all alone, and even if I am abused and villified.

And at this critical juncture of India's history my duty is to tell Indians that if they wish to progress and prosper they must give up backward, feudal and unscientific ideas and take to the path of reason and science---the path shown by our great ancestors, Aryabhatta and Brahmagupta, Sushrut and Charak, Panini and Patanjali, Ramanujan and Raman.

Friday, 17 April 2015

Kashmiris will have to keep suffering because many of them foolishly kept demanding separation from India, which will never be granted, instead of demanding reunification of India and Pakistan under a secular government which does not tolerate religious extremism of any kind, whether Hindu or Muslim, as I repeatedly advised.

Since good advice has not worked, now only bitter experience will work. Sad, but true

The word ' chamar ' comes from the word ' chamda ' ( चमड़ा ) i,e, leather. Chamars were those who did leather work i.e. making shoes, leather bags,etc in feudal society.

As i mentioned in my blog 'Caste System' ( see justicekatju.blogspot.in ), though caste in India appears to have originally had a racial origin ( the word 'varna' literally means colour ), subsequently caste system developed into the feudal, occupational division of labour in feudal society. In other .words, every vocation,e.g. potter ( kumhar ), carpenter ( badhai ), iron smith ( lohar ), barber ( nai ), etc became a caste.. So leather workers also became a caste called 'chamar'.

Upto the coming of the British in the 18th century, chamars were a respectable caste because chamars earned their livelihood, and in fact were indispensable, in feudal society.

It was after the British conquered India in the 18th and early 19th centuries and destroyed the massive handicraft industry in India, thus making tens of millions of Indians unemployed and driven to destitution, beggary, crime and starvation, ( see my blog ' Dinner at the German Embassy' ) that chamars, along with many other castes, were driven down the social ladder, because they lost their livelihood as their hand made products were driven out of the market. by factory products e.g. Bata shoes. When a person becomes unemployed and cannot earn his livelihood he becomes indigent and goes down the social ladder, and is looked down upon. And this is what happened to chamars.

In my decision in the Supreme Court ( in a bench along with Justice Alatamas Kabir ) in Swaran Singh vs. State through Standing Counsel ( 2008 ) I traced the history of chamars and observed :

" The question in this case is whether calling a person `Chamar' amounts to intentionally insulting with intent to humiliate a member of the Scheduled Caste.

It is true that Chamar is the name of a caste among Hindus who were traditionally persons who made leather goods by handicraft [vide the People of India by Watson Kaye, the Tribes & Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh by W.Crooke, The Chamars of Uttar Pradesh by A.B Mukerji, The Chamar Artisans by Satish Kumar Sharma, The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western India by W. Crooke etc.]. The word `chamar' is derived from the Hindi word `chamda' which means leather.

Before the coming of the British into India, the Chamars were a stable socio-economic group who were engaged in manufacturing leather goods by handicraft. As is well-known, feudal society was characterized by the feudal occupational division of labour in society. In other words, every vocation or occupation in India became a caste e.g. Dhobi (washerman), Badhai (carpenter), Lohar (blacksmith), Kumbhar (potter) etc. The same was the position in other countries also during feudal times. Thus, even now many Britishers have the surname Baker, Butcher, Taylor, Smith, Carpenter, Gardener, Mason, Turner, etc. which shows that their ancestors belonged to these professions.

It is estimated that before the coming of the British into India about 40% of the population of India was engaged in industry while the rest of the population was engaged in agriculture. This industry was no doubt handicraft industry, and not mill industry. Nevertheless, there was a very high level production of goods in India by these handicraft industries before the coming of the British, and many of these goods were exported often up to Europe, the Middle East, China, etc. e.g. Dacca Muslin, Murshidabad silk, and other kind of textiles, etc.

A rough and ready test of the level of economic development of a country is to find out how much percentage of the population is engaged in industry, and how much in agriculture. The greater the percentage of population in industry and lesser in agriculture the more prosperous the country. Thus, the U.S.A., the most prosperous country in the world today has only about 2 or 3% of its population in agriculture, while the rest is in industry or services.

India was a relatively prosperous country before the coming of the British because a high percentage of the people (which could be up to 40%) was engaged at that time in industry (though no doubt this was handicraft industry, not mill industry). Thus, Lord Clive around 1757 (when the battle of Plassey was fought) described Murshidabad (which was then the capital of Bengal) as a city more prosperous than London, vide `Glimpses of World History' by Jawaharlal Nehru (Third Impression p.416, chapter entitled `The Indian Artisan goes to the wall').

When the British conquered India they introduced the products of their mill industry into India, and exorbitantly raised the export duties on the Indian handicraft products. Thereby they practically destroyed the handicraft industry in India. The result was that by the end of the British rule hardly 10% or even less of the population of India was still in the handicraft industry, and the rest of those who were earlier engaged in the handicraft industry were made unemployed. In this way about 30% of the population of India who were employed in handicraft industry became unemployed, and were driven to starvation, destitution, beggary or crime (the thugs and `criminal' tribes were really these unemployed sections of society). As an English Governor General wrote in 1834, `the bones of the cotton weavers are bleaching the plains of India'

In this connection it may be noted that in the revenue records in many states in our country one often finds recorded : `A son of B, caste lohar (smith), vocation agriculture'; or `C son of D, caste badhai (carpenter), vocation agriculture', or `E son of H, caste kumhar (potter), vocation agriculture', etc. This indicates that the ancestors of these persons were in those professions, but later they became unemployed as British mill industry destroyed their handicraft. Some people think that if the British had not come into India an indigenous mill industry would have developed in India, and India would have become an Industrial State by the 19th Century, like North America or Europe, but it is not necessary to go into this here.

The Chamars also suffered terribly during this period. The British industries e.g. Bata almost completely destroyed the vocation of the Chamars, with the result that while they were a relatively respectable section of society before the coming of British rule (because they could earn their livelihood through manufacture of leather goods) subsequently they sank in the social ladder and went down to the lowest strata in society, because they lost their livelihood and became unemployed.

Today the word `Chamar' is often used by people belonging to the so-called upper castes or even by OBCs as a word of insult, abuse and derision. Calling a person `Chamar' today is nowadays an abusive language and is highly offensive. In fact, the word `Chamar' when used today is not normally used to denote a caste but to intentionally insult and humiliate someone.

It may be mentioned that when we interpret section 3(1)(x) of the Act we have to see the purpose for which the Act was enacted. It was obviously made to prevent indignities, humiliation and harassment to the members of SC/ST community, as is evident from the Statement of Objects & Reasons of the Act. Hence, while interpreting section 3(1)(x) of the Act, we have to take into account the popular meaning of the word `Chamar' which it has acquired by usage, and not the etymological meaning. If we go by the etymological meaning, we may frustrate the very object of the Act, and hence that would not be a correct manner of interpretation.

This is the age of democracy and equality. No people or community should be today insulted or looked down upon, and nobody's feelings should be hurt. This is also the spirit of our Constitution and is part of its basic features. Hence, in our opinion, the so-called upper castes and OBCs should not use the word `Chamar' when addressing a member of the Scheduled Caste, even if that person in fact belongs to the `Chamar' caste, because use of such a word will hurt his feelings. In such a country like ours with so much diversity - so many religions, castes, ethnic and lingual groups, etc. - all communities and groups must be treated with respect, and no one should be looked down upon as an inferior. That is the only way we can keep our country united.

In our opinion, calling a member of the Scheduled Caste `Chamar' with intent to insult or humiliate him in a place within public view is certainly an offence under section 3(1)(x) of the Act. Whether there was intent to insult or humiliate by using the word `Chamar' will of course depend on the context in which it was used."

This judgment was followed in Arumugam Serrvai vs. State of Tamilnadu, 2011 by a bench of the Supreme Court consisting of myself and Justice Gyansudha Misra, vide para 13 of the judgment ( see online ).

Thursday, 16 April 2015

Our national aim must be to make India a highly prosperous country in which our people enjoy a high standard of living, nobody is discriminated against, and everybody is given equal opportunity to develop his or her talents. This is possible only when India gets highly industrialized, and this is possible only when rational and scientific thinking is spread among our masses.

My effort through my posts is therefore to spread rational and scientific thinking among Indians, who are presently steeped in casteism, communalism, and superstitions. But look at my uphill task. I will give a few examples.

Very few Indians eat beef, because most Hindus regard cow as sacred or as a mother. Most of my own family members do not eat beef and are conservative Hindus. I am surrounded by an ocean of people in India who would be horrified at the very thought of eating beef. For centuries Hindus have been brainwashed into thinking that cows should not be slaughtered.

But I have made it a principle that I will never accept anything just because millions or even billions of people believe in it. Unless something appeals to my reason I will never accept it, even if the rest of humanity accepts it. At one time almost everyone believed in witches and ghosts, but is that a good reason to believe in them ? So unless I am convinced by sound reasoning I will not accept anything said by anyone.

I coolly reasoned with myself, and saw nothing wrong in eating beef. A cow is only an animal. How can it be regarded as the mother of human beings ? And how can an animal be regarded as sacred ? Human beings are superior to animals because they are more evolved. How can human beings worship as a god a creature which is lower in evolution ?

Also, most of the world eats beef. Are Americans, Europeans, Russians, Chinese, Africans, etc and even some people in India all wicked people, and Hindus alone good ? It would be silly to say so.

Being rationally convinced that there was nothing wrong in eating beef, and therefore ban on beef is irrational, and therefore anti-Indian, I spoke out against it.

In fact I have eaten beef a few times, but usually do not eat it out of respect for my wife and other relatives and friends, but if the occasion arises I will again eat beef. I see nothing wrong in doing so.

I knew that I would be widely condemned and abused for saying this, but what of that ? If rational ideas were not propagated there would be no progress in the world. At one time almost everyone in Europe believed that the sun revolved around the earth as the Bible said, and the contrary view of Copernicus was condemned. But today the view, initially of one man as against the rest, is accepted as true. It follows that the minority, sometimes of only one man, is correct, and sometimes the view of the overwhelming majority is wrong.

I am therefore never bothered that the majority, or even vast majority holds a view contrary to mine. The real question is : which view is rational and scientific ?

Similarly, I expressed my view about Gandhi, calling him objectively a British agent, for which I was condemned by both Houses of Parliament. But while I gave my reasons for my opinion, the members of Parliament who spoke against me, gave no reasons to refute my reasoning. I believe that the Indian people have been brainwashed for long about Gandhi, but now the time has come when they must know the truth.

The boy with nothing in his upper storey is back. He is the last nail in the Congress coffin, but Sonia is determined to hammer it in, even if that destroys the Congress Party After all, she is a good mother, who must protect her cub, even if that means shoving him down the throats of Indians.

Sonia's life mission is to see her son installed as the Emperor of India ( i.e. Prime Minister ). After all, the Nehru-Gandhi family is the royal dynasty of India, and in a dynasty, the son of the King ( or Queen ) becomes the next king, no matter that he is an idiot or an imbecile.

Kayasthas are usually an educated class who are, and have been judges, lawyers, professors, doctors, bureaucrats, politicians, etc

In feudal society .Kayasthas were the scribes and record keepers, e.g. patwaris, kanungos, etc. Some of them rose to high positions in the Mughal Empire e.g. Raja Todar Mal.

In modern times they have distinguished themselves in various fields e.g. Swami Vivekanand, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, who was the first President of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was a Prime Minister, Justice J.S. Verma, who was a Chief Justice of India, Firaq Gorakhpuri and Munshi Premchand in literature, Dr. Kotnis who heroically sacrificed his life serving the Chinese people in their fight against the Japanese invaders, etc.

They have been very proficient in Persian and Urdu. Firaq Gorakhpuri ( whose real name was Raghupati Sahai ) was a foremost Urdu poet. Munshi Premchand, Neeraj and Mahadevi Verma are well known in Hindi literature.

Kayasthas are known to be very intelligent and clever, and the following story illustrates this :

In the reign of Wajid Ali Shah, the Nawab of Avadh, in the mid 19th century, there was an elderly Kayastha ( let us call him Shrivastava ) who was a clerk in charge of disbursing salaries to the Avadh state officials.

One day Shrivastava was walking on a road in Lucknow when from the other side came galloping on his horse an officer in the Nawab's army ( let us call him Sardar Mohammed Ali Khan ). On seeing the old clerk on his way the army officer took out his whip and gave the clerk one lash, which made the clerk fall down.

The clerk had noted the countenance of the army officer, and the next day when the army officer came to collect his monthly salary he saw that it was the same person who had given him a lash the previous day. So Shrivastava took out his record book and quickly made some alterations therein.

When the army officer came to the clerk's counter to collect his salary, Shrivastava asked him who he was. The officer replied that he was Sardar Mohammed Ali Khan. The clerk gazed at him, looked at his record,and then nodded his head,and said that he was not Sardar Mohammed Ali Khan. This made the army officer angry, and he insisted that he was indeed that person. The clerk then showed the army officer the record, where Sardar Mohammed Ali Khan was described as a person with one eye, one ear, his nose cut off, and 4 front teeth missing. He said that he will make payment only to the person with that description.

The result was that that the army officer had to go and get one eye plucked out, one ear and the nose cut off, and 4 front teeth extracted before he could get his salary !

The moral of the story is : don't mess with Kayasthas. If you do,they can do you enormous damage in retaliation without wielding a weapon.

P.S.

There is another story of the Kayastha who was sentenced to count the waves, but I will not relate that for fear that some Kayastha may file a defamation case against me !

Tuesday, 14 April 2015

I am informed by some people that most mediapersons and media houses, both print and T.V., have decided to boycott me and not to publish my views or anything about me.

Probably that is because I largely supported Gen. V.K. Singh who called mediapersons ' presstitutes ', on my facebook post and blog.

Of course I had.also said that there were also many upright journalists, and I had mentioned the name of P.Sainath, whom I greatly respect. I also include the late Vinod Mehta, Karan Thapar, N. Ram, Vinod Sharma, Madhu Trehan, Krishna Prasad, Rahul Kanwal, Bhupendra Chaubey and some others whom I respect. But yes, the vast majority of Indian journalists are indeed 'presstitutes', as my experience in the Press Council showed me.

If my information is correct, and indeed these 'presstitutes' have decided to boycott me, they are welcome.

I have repeatedly said that I am not a publicity or popularity seeker, and so I am totally unaffected by such stupid 'boycotts'.

Yes, I want publicity of my ideas, not for any personal benefit but because I believe they are in the interest of the nation. However, even if my views are not publicized in the print or T.V. media, I have the social media available to me i.e. facebook, blog and Twitter. That would of course not give as much publicity to my views as the other media, but it is sufficient for my needs.

It is also possible that some political authorities have told the mediapersons to boycott me, since I have often expressed my low opinion of most of the present Indian politicians, and the 'free media' may have loyally obeyed the diktat, but this is in the realm of speculation.

However, I am not blaming mediapersons alone. After all, they have lifestyles to maintain and families to look after. So they cannot afford to displease their owners ( and the owners cannot afford to displease the political authorities ). And so like Dr.Faust, these 'presstitutes' have sold their souls to some Mephistopheles.

However, it is the general decline in ethics in India which I would like to comment upon.

As I have pointed out in some of my earlier posts, India is presently passing through a transitional period in its history, transition from feudal, agricultural society to a modern industrial one. At present we are neither totally feudal, nor totally modern, but somewhere in between.

A feudal society had an ethical system, but that has largely been destroyed. On the other hand, the ethical system of industrial society has not yet been put in its place ( because industrial society has not yet been fully created ). So presently there is no ethical system existing in India, and there is an ethical vacuum. So what we have in India is a free-for-all.

Indian society has become largely commercialized, and money has become its God. There is a Hindi film song which accurately summarises the situation " Na bibi na maiyya, the whole thing is that ki bhaiyya, sab se bada rupaiyya ". So for making money most Indians can do anything, by hook or crook.

I remember over 20 years ago, perhaps in 1992 or 1993, when my daughter was in class 10 or so ( she would have been about 15 then ) she gave a birthday party to which she invited about a dozen school friends. I was then a Judge in the Allahabad High Court. I went and sat for about 15-20 minutes with my daughter's friends and started talking with them. I asked one girl, who was a bright student regularly getting about 90% in her exams, what she wanted to do in later life. She said seriously " Uncle I will join the I.A.S. and make a lot of money ". I was shocked ! A 15 year old bright girl was frankly saying that she would take bribes in later life I could not even imagine such thoughts in my youth.I told her it was wrong to make money by improper means, but she replied " Uncle when I work hard to get into I.A.S. I deserve to get the good things in life "

I do not mean to say that there are no upright people in Indian society today, but their proportion has certainly gone down drastically.

If one's parents have instilled good values in one in one's childhood, the chances are that one will be upright in later life. But if one's parents are themselves corrupt or crooks, as more and more adults are becoming, what can be expected in society ?

So I do not blame mediapersons alone. Most of Indian society has become amoral.

Monday, 13 April 2015

I sent this article to four leading English newspapers, but none of them had the courage to publish it, as evidently they are scared of the contempt power of the judiciary. So I suppose I have to bell the cat myself. So I am posting it on facebook and on my blog justicekatju.blogspot.in.

The title of the article has been borrowed from Emile Zola's famous article ' J'accuse ' ( I accuse ) protesting against the conviction of Captain Dreyfus, an innocent French army officer who had been falsely found guilty of spying for the Germans on the basis of fabricated evidence.

When I started law practice in the Allahabad High Court in 1971 there was no corrupt judge in the High Court, or probably in any High Court in India ( though corruption had crept into the subordinate judiciary.). Later, corruption entered the High Courts, and steadily increased, so much so that in 1994, during the tenure of Justice Venkatachaliah as Chief Justice of India a large number of High Court Judges had to be transferred on the ground of corruption. In 2001 the then Chief Justice of India, Justice Bharucha, said that 20% High Court Judges in India could be corrupt. My own estimate is that today that figure could be as high as 50%.

In Raja Khan vs. U.P. Sunni Central Waqf Board ( 2011) a bench of myself and Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra were constrained to say " Something is rotten in the Allahabad High Court."

Mr. Shanti Bhushan, a very senior lawyer of the Supreme Court, and former Union Law Minister, some years back filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court stating that half the previous 16 Chief Justices of India were corrupt. Since then probably more names could be added to that list.

J'accuse

-By Justice Markandey Katju

By rejecting Mr. Shanti Bhushan's petition seeking registration of an F.I.R. against Justice C.K. Prasad for gross corruption, the Indian Supreme Court has once again sought to bury corruption by one of its own members under the carpet, forgetting that however much one may seek to conceal it, the bulge will show.

The case against Justice Prasad appeared to me quite convincing. There was a 35 hectare ( 88 acre ) Cidco prime land at Sea Wood Estate in Nerul in Navi Mumbai allegedly worth Rs. 1000 crore. This was awarded to one Mr. Mistry for a pittance of Rs.33 crore. The Bombay High Court struck this down and ordered a re-tender. An appeal against this verdict was pending before a 3 Judge bench of the Supreme Court, when Justice Prasad, heading a 2 Judge bench dragged the case to his own bench by tagging it with an unrelated criminal appeal listed before him, and decided the case in a few minutes.

Mr. Dushyant Dave, President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, in his letter to the Chief Justice of India, gave details of how Justice Prasad got the case put up before his 2 Judge bench ( when only the Chief Justice, who is the master of the roster, can order a case to be put up before a particular bench ), and decided it hurriedly, apparently in a pre-determined manner, to give colossal benefit to a party.

In his letter Mr. Dave wrote " Why was the bench headed by Justice Prasad so keen to hear the land matter in such unnatural haste in violation of judicial propriety and decorum ? ". He also added " The judgment brushed away without debate the damning High Court findings.and direction for a re-tender. So Mistry gets 35 hectares land for a song "

Prima facie this was a clear case of corruption, and so it surely deserved an investigation by the police, for which an F.I.R. was necessary. Therefore the writ petition of Mr. Bhushan praying for registering of an F.I.R. against Justice Prasad clearly deserved to be allowed.

I had earlier in an article published in Times of India written about a corrupt Judge of Madras High Court, in whose favour 3 Chief Justices of India made improper compromises because the leader of a political party in Tamilnadu was giving him protection. When this news was published the then Chief Justice of India, Justice Lodha, said that some people ( meaning obviously me ) were trying to defame the judiciary. So according to Justice Lodha, and many others of his thinking, corruption by Judges does not defame the judiciary, but exposing that corruption defames it ! Strange logic.

Subsequently I was vindicated when a letter by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh supporting that corrupt judge surfaced, and also by the statement of Justice Ruma Pal, who was at the relevant time in the 3 Judge Collegium of the Supreme Court, in my support.

The same logic was applied by the 2 Judge bench headed by Justice Deepak Mishra which said that

ordering an F.i.R. would be ' opening dangerous doors '. In fact this 2 Judge bench shockingly violated judicial discipline by not following the 5 Judge Constitution bench decision of the Supreme Court in Lalita Kumari vs. Govt of U.P. which had categorically held ( in paragraph 111 of its verdict ) that registration of an F.I.R. in such a case was mandatory.

Justice Marlapalle of the Bombay High Court who passed the order appealed against said that if the contents of Dushyant Dave's letter to the CJI were correct he would hang his head in shame.

I now therefore make the following accusations :

I accuse the Indian judiciary of repeatedly burying corruption by its own members under the carpet.

I accuse it of being hypocritical by speaking against corruption by politicians and bureaucrats, but deliberately protecting its own corrupt brethren.

I accuse it of using, or threatening to use the Contempt of Court Act as a weapon to terrorize people who speak against its corruption or some of its grossly improper verdicts, but refusing to take action for contempt against the high and mighty e.g. in P.N.Duda's case , A.I.R. 1988 S.C.1208 where a Union Minister had said that the Supreme Court sympathized with zamindars and bank magnates, and that " FERA violaters, bride burners and a whole horde of reactionaries have found their haven in the Supreme Court ", and that Supreme Court Judges have unconcealed sympathy for the haves. No action was taken against the Union Minister. Mr. Nariman, the eminemt lawyer wondered whether if this statement had been made been made by an ordinary citizen he would have been let off ?

I accuse the present CJI Dattu of shameless sycophancy in praising the Prime Minister, which is reminiscient of the shameless s letter sent by Justice P.N. Bhagwati to the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi praising her.

And in the case of Justice C.K. Prasad, I accuse the bench headed by Justice Deepak Mishra of shielding, even by shockingly violating judicial discipline, a Judge who so patently gave a corrupt verdict.

Sunday, 12 April 2015

My answer is : without destruction there can be no construction. So I am smashing idols, meaning false or outdated beliefs and values.

I am naming just a few :

1. Gandhi. Depicted as the Father of the Nation, when he was objectively a British agent who did great harm to India by (1) injecting religion into politics by constantly advocating Ram Rajya, cow protection, brahmacharya, etc thus driving Muslims toward the Muslim League and serving the British policy of divide and rule, and (2) diverting the freedom struggle from the revolutionary direction towards which Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen, etc were taking it to a harmless, nonsensical direction called satyagrah. Independence in 1947 was not due to Gandhi but due to German attack on England in the Second World War and American pressure.

2. Subhas Chandra Bose. An agent of the Japanese fascist imperialists. If there was anything in the man he would not have given up the fight against the British when Japan surrendered in 1945 but would have carried on a guerilla war. He was only used by the Japanese.

3. Tagore. A loyal British stooge built up by Yeats to divert literature from the revolutionary direction Sharad Chandra Chattopadhyaya was taking it towards nonsensical mysticism and spiritualism.

4. Cow. Stupidly depicted as a 'mother' by most Hindus.when it is only an animal, and eaten by most of the world. Are the 90% of the world who eat beef wicked ? Are Nagas, Mizos, and others in india who eat beef wicked ?

5. Burqa or hijab, and oral talaq. Stupidly supported by many Muslim men, and stupidly worn by many Muslim women. There are idiots who rationalize these backward feudal practices.

6. Looking down on dalits as inferiors. This shows the stupidity of most Hindus.

7. Those politicians of India who are corrupt. They should have been on the gallows long ago, but are still alive because of the crass stupidity of most Indians

8. Babas, who have huge followings in this country of 90% idiots

9. Astrologers and belief in astrology which is pure superstition and humbug, but has huge followers in this country of 90% idiots.

10. Casteism and communalism, which are often the basis of electoral politics and are widespread in society, often even among the so called ' educated people ' in India

When I wrote my post ' The reality about Arvind Kejriwal ' and connected posts exposing the truth about that fraud Kejriwal ( see my blog juisticekatju.blogspot.in ) I was furiously attacked by many people. I analyzed Kejriwal and his views, and said that he is only a ' Sapnon ka Saudagar ', but few people would listen to me at that time.

Now the DISCOM companies, which supply power to Delhi, are proposing to hike electricity charges by 20%.

What will Kejriwal do now ? Another dharna ? But against whom ? This time he cannot accuse the Central Government.

In money matters one cannot bluff for long. People of Delhi will now realize the truth of what I said when electricity prices are hiked. So what will happen to Kejriwal's promise that the electricity tarriff will be halved ? Will he resign again ?

Friday, 10 April 2015

Ravana was not only the king of Lanka, he was also a great scholar, expert in all 16 branches of knowledge then known. He was also a great veena player, a great poet, having composed the well known Shiva Tandava Stotram ( given below ), a great warrior who had conquered many lands, and also a great devotee of Lord Shiva.He was the son of Vishrava, a great and good rishi ( sage ).

But he had a 'rakshasi pravritti' ( wicked nature ), which was the cause of his downfall. This just shows that being learned and competent is one thing, and being good is another. One should be both.

It also shows that a good man, like Vishrava, can have a wicked son like Ravana, while a wicked man like Hiranyakashyap can have a good son like Prahlada.

Originally reservations of seats in educational institutions and jobs in government and public sector services,etc were only about 22%, 20% for Scheduled Castes (SCs ) and 2% for Scheduled Tribes ( STs ).

In 1989 by one stroke of the pen the then Prime Minister V.P.Singh added another 27.5 % for OBCs ( Other Backward Castes e.g. Yadavs, Kurmis,etc ), by implementing the Mandal Commission Report, making a total of 49.5%.

This was challenged before the Supreme Court, but the Court upheld the reservations for OBCs in its decision in Indira Sawhney vs. Union of India, A.I.R.1993 S.C.477.

I met Justice B.P.Jeevan Reddy, who had delivered the majority decision in Indira Sawhney's case, at a function at the National Law School, Bangalore after he had retired, and told him that his decision was not correct. He asked me why ?

I explained to him that in U.P. and Bihar the position before Independence in 1947 was that there was a zamindari system. The zamindars ( landlords ) were mostly upper caste Hindus or Muslims, and their tenants were Yadavs, Kurmis, etc (the present OBCs ). At that time Yadavs, Kurmis, etc were really poor and backward, and almost all illiterate. After Independence, zamindari was abolished, and the former tenants ( Yadavs, Kurmis,etc ) became bhumidhars i.e. landholders. This enabled the Yadavs, Kurmis,etc to use the income from their landholdings to educate their children, and now Yadavs, Kurmis, etc are doctors, engineers, lawyers, High Court judges, etc. In other words, they are no longer backward.

So when the Yadavs, Kurmis,etc were really backward ( that is, uptil about Independence ) and needed reservation or some other kind of help they were denied it, but when they are no longer backward they are being given reservation. In fact this was the very reason for which the only dalit member of the Mandal Commission, L.R.Naik, refused to sign the report.

Justice Reddy replied to me that he had to rely on the report of experts, i.e. the Mandal Commission Report. I said that I was not blaming him, but only informing him that he was not given correct information.

I have always been a strong opponent of the caste system, and believe it is a curse on the nation, and the sooner it is destroyed the better ( see my article on the Caste System on my blog justicekatju.blogspot.in ).

However, in my opinion caste based reservations, which have benefited only a miniscule number of such castes ( and that too the richer section, which did not need any help ), has done great damage to the rest, and ensured that they remain as wretched and poor as they were before.

In my opinion financial help and facilities should be given to poor people of all castes, There are poor people in all castes, not merely among SCs and OBCs, and they should all be helped.

Caste based reservations are like permanent crutches. Unless they are removed SCs and OBCs cannot walk erect. These categories should certainly be helped by giving them all facilities, but thereafter they must work hard and make it on their own merit. It is totally unjustified that open category boys and girls who get 90% marks are denied admission or jobs, while those getting 40% get them due to reservations.This is reverse discrimination, as pointed out by the U.S.Supreme Court in Bakke vs. California,438 U.S.265 (1978).

I spoke to the Principal of a Government Medical College in U.P. He told me that if an SC boy fails in a test, oral orders come from above to pass him, otherwise the Principal will get into trouble. In this way we produce many ( though not all ) incompetent SC doctors, without thinking of the risk to patients.

No doubt reservations have helped many politicians by creating vote banks for them, but it has made casteism more deeply entrenched in our society, and has further divided our people on caste basis at a time when we must be united to solve the country's massive problems. It is time to end caste based reservations

Thursday, 9 April 2015

Those who ask me to join politics should consider whether anyone will vote for me ? Will Hindus vote for me since it is known that I have eaten beef, and will again eat it on some occasions ? Will Muslims vote for me since it is known that I am totally opposed to burqa/hijab and oral talaq ? That leaves only Sikhs, Christians, Parsis.Jains. But they are altogether only 4 or 5% of the total population of India. And I am not sure of getting even their votes since I have openly said that all religions are superstitions